By Shlomi Sheffer

Attorney Israel Perry today notified the Tel Aviv District Court that despite his intentions to appeal to the Supreme Court concerning the District Court’s ruling in his case, he promises to compensate his clients if the ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court.

To this end, Attorney Israel Perry has established an independent fund, headed by a retired judge, who will examine every instance individually, and in the event that the cost of the premium, which clients were required to pay in advance, is higher than the cost of alternative insurance, the clients will be reimbursed in keeping with the parameters determined by the judge.

Attorney Israel Perry also promised that if any client wishes to insure his agreement-based debts to the lending companies, the organization will reimburse him for the premiums collected in advance, from the day of the purchase of alternative insurance from another insurance company.

In order to guarantee this commitment, Attorney Israel Perry announced that he will deposit an initial sum of $50 million in the fund. This special fund will be headed by retired judge Danny Ernst. The details of these arrangements were given to the District Court.

“The court ruling noted that since I controlled the insurance company that insured the loans extended for buying the rights to a pension in Germany, the entire sum of each premium charged is defined as a theft,” said Attorney Israel Perry today. “This is a serious accusation that I intend to appeal. Despite this, I am moved by a serious personal feeling that I cannot bear, stemming from the fact that large parts of the public believe that I stole money from my clients. I therefore informed the court today that I am immediately creating a mechanism through which the clients can receive everything that the court ruling defines as a theft, if that ruling is not changed after the appeal.”

Attorney Yaakov Weinroth recently joined Israel Perry’s defense team, and will manage and lead the appeal procedure.

In October 2007 Israel Perry, who headed the Organization for the Implementation of the Social Security Treaty (Israel-West Germany), was found guilty of stealing 320 million DM from the organization’s clients. District Court Judge Zecharia Caspi defined the theft as the misappropriation of insurance premiums paid in advance by the organization’s clients.

The court ruling determined that since the Britannia insurance company, which insured the loans extended to help clients purchase pension rights in Germany, was controlled by Attorney Israel Perry, all the insurance premiums charged were defined as theft. The ruling also defined as theft the sums that remained in the hands of other companies controlled by Perry, which provided loans to the organization’s clients, while exempting the repayment of the remainder of the loans if the client died. The ruling set the sum charged in advance as the insurance payment at some 300 DM, which is equivalent to about NIS 800 million.